Kris-Stella Trump

@kstrump.bsky.social

5073 Followers 2410 Following

Political scientist at Johns Hopkins University: democracy, inequality, political psychology, public opinion, behavioral everything. No relation. American by way of Estonia, Sweden, and England.

Crowds fill St Marks Place to celebrate Knicks win as some folks climb scaffolding
Image is a paragraph of text that reads: "They believed themselves strong, when really they were weak. They believed themselves loved, when really they were hated. They believed themselves brilliant, when really they were inept. Ministers, senior officials, and high ranking military officers held their jobs thanks to connections or loyalty, rather than talent and expertise. Not only were they incapable of properly cleaning up a mess, they were incapable of understanding that they themselves had made the mess in the first place. It must be someone else’s fault, a few malcontents intellectuals too smart for their own good, or some uppity students who should shut up and go back to class, or some ungrateful workers who complained all the time because they were lazy and selfish. And because the halls of imperial power were full of racist xenophobia, they of course also blamed foreigners and Jews."
Yard sign saying “Abolish ICE is now a moderate position”
Figure from the publication, visualizing the results of a conjoint survey experiment. Outcome variable: support for taxing rich target. Significant variables: household income, treats workers unfairly, uses loopholes, does not donate to charity, engages in conspicuous consumption. Marginally significant: does not work hard. Insignificant: from a well-off family.
Survey question: What is the most important thing that happened in your life during the past year? Randomly selected survey response: A 61 year old Republican wrote: "Federal Government agents ransacked my house and looted whatever they wanted AGAIN."
Bar chart that shows redistributive policy support across five experimental conditions; the levels of support are not noticeably different between conditions.
Poster on campus: "Free movie Thursday March 28, 6pm, Mason Hall. Coddling of the American Mind."
"The whole of American society, at this moment, is a layer of various anxieties and resentments without any sincerely shared values pinning it all in place."
Abstract: This review explains how and why the United States has systemically high poverty. Descriptive evidence shows that U.S. poverty is (i) a huge share of the population, (ii) a perennial outlier among rich democracies, (iii) staggeringly high for certain groups, (iv) unexpectedly high for those who “play by the rules,” and (v) pervasive across various groups and places. This review then discusses and critiques three prevailing approaches focused on the individual poor rather than the systemically high poverty: (i) behavioral explanations “fixing the poor,” (ii) emotive compassion “dramatizing the poor,” and (iii) cultural explanations both dramatizing and fixing the poor. The essay then reviews political explanations that emphasize the essential role of social policy generosity, political choices to penalize risks, power resources of collective political actors, and institutions. [more through link]